A primary use of computer information systems is the creation, organization, transmission and storage of information of a variety of types in the form of content data, including but not limited to word processing documents; spreadsheets; images; drawings; photographs; sounds; music; email; software source code; web pages, both local and remote; application programs; name and address lists; appointments; notes; calendar schedules; task lists; personal finance management data; corporate customer, department, employee, stocking and accounting data; and so on.
Generally, this information data is stored in either individual file system entities (files) of proprietary formats stored on a local or LAN or WAN network disk drive or accessed via the Internet, such as a word processing document or databases with specialized access software. For example, email messages are often stored bundled together in a single file, and new messages are retrieved from a remote server via an Internet protocol; access requires a specific email client to manage these messages. Similarly, accessing information in a database requires specialized programs that are compatible with the database format or network access protocol to communicate with a server to store or retrieve the information and display it in a useful format.
Although file data strings (the string of digital bits that comprise the content data or object) are generally accompanied by a small, rudimentary amount of metadata about the file, i.e., data that represents properties describing the file contents (such as one or more of: the file's name, the creation date, the last modification date, access privileges, and possibly a comment), there is typically very little or no metadata conveying information as to the internal structure or meaning of the file's contents, that is, no metadata about the content data. Some files do have internal descriptions of the contents, but this data is often difficult to access, requiring special applications to read and not otherwise generally available to the user. Similarly, records in a database lack information that is needed for use in file systems. In general, database records cannot be manipulated in the same way as files in a file system.
Thus, the differences in the nature and manner in which content data is stored in individual files and in proprietary databases, and the lack of useful metadata about the files or the database content data, makes them closed and partitioned. This closed and partitioned nature of files and databases poses numerous, significant organizational, archival and retrieval problems.
File system browsers, due to their bounded (strictly limited) knowledge of file contents created by various and possibly unknown software applications, are limited to organizing files by the basic metadata properties provided by the file system itself: by name, various dates, and by directory or folder.
Finally, there is no general software mechanism (program) in contemporary operating systems to link or group information from diverse independent sources when they are managed by separate applications. This problem with presently available operating systems and application programs was succinctly set forth by Mr. Mundie of Microsoft as follows (referring to Bill Gates):
The scenario is the dream, not something defined in super-gory detail,” says Mundie. “It's what Bill and I focus on more than the business plans or P&Ls. For a project as big as Longhorn, there could have been 100 scenarios, but Bill does this thing with his mind where he distills the list down to a manageable set of factors that we can organize developer groups around.” Gates' scenarios usually take the form of surprisingly simple questions that customers might have. Here's a sampling from our interviews:                “Why are my document files stored one way, my contacts another way, and my email and instant-messaging buddy list still another, and why aren't they related to my calendar or to one another and easy to search en masse? . . . . ”(Quote from Fortune Magazine, available on the Internet at: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/ceo/articles/0,15114,371336-3,00.html        
In addition, data stored in computer systems does not have, as a fundamental aspect, relationship information other than the most trivial of forms. For example, files may be grouped together within folders or directories, or they may be labeled with a color, but otherwise there is very little functionality to allow the grouping or linking of disparate pieces of information within the system.
In particular, when a file or other piece of information is logically involved in multiple groupings, linking, cross-referencing or relating the groupings is cumbersome at best with current systems. For example, where a given file “myCarFinances.doc” logically should be grouped in both a “Finances” group and an “Autos” group, there are no truly easy choices for accomplishing such multiple grouping. Either a copy of the file must be made in two separate “Finances” and “Autos” folders, in which case the user must be careful to update both files when changes are made; or a shortcut or alias file must be created and placed in these folders. Both currently available approaches involve tedious, repetitive manual effort to create and manage that becomes exponentially more difficult as the number of groupings or cross-references increases.
Because of this, cross-referencing and filing objects in multiple locations is difficult, error-prone, and time-consuming. If copies are made for each location, valuable disk space is wasted, and the user is left with having to manage changes by making new copies whenever the original is modified and remembering every location of every copy. Many cross-references require many copies, further complicating the task. And even if the user decides to create alias files instead of making actual copies, the alias files still take up space, and the management issue is equally complex and time-consuming.
Accordingly, there is a long felt need in the art to provide a truly open computer system having data structures, input interfaces, displays and operational systems that permits the organization of information, as data objects, in a wide variety of files and databases, which computer system is independent of the source of the information objects, is dynamic and automatic, permitting faster archiving, retrieval and viewing of the information and providing more meaningful and useful links for better organization and indexing of the information. What is needed is a simple-to-use data structure and operating mechanism to link information together in a dynamic, memory-and-space-efficient manner, without modifying the original information or propagating numerous, storage-space-robbing duplicates, each of which individually must be updated as new versions arise.